The Dakar Rally or simply "The Dakar", formerly known as the "Paris–Dakar Rally", is an annual rally raid organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation. The rally is an off-road endurance event. The terrain that the competitors traverse is much tougher than that used in conventional rallying, and the vehicles used are typically true off-road vehicles and motorcycles, rather than modified on-road vehicles. Most of the competitive special sections are off-road, crossing dunes, mud, camel grass, rocks, and erg among others. The distances of each stage covered vary from short distances up to 800–900 kilometres (500–560 mi) per day. The rough terrain, driver fatigue, and lack of skill usually results in accidents and serious injuries.
Rally raid is a type of off-road motorsport event competed with different types of vehicles. Along with shorter baja rallies, rally raid constitutes cross-country rallying. Both the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) co-organise a common World Rally-Raid Championship featuring the same events and types of vehicles.
The 2010 Dakar Rally was the 32nd running of the event. It was held in South America for the second successive time, and ran from 1 to 16 January. The Amaury Sport Organisation and the governments of Argentina and Chile agreed to a return to South America for the event in February 2009.
The 2000 Dakar Rally, also known as the 2000 Dakar–Cairo Rally, was the 22nd running of the Dakar Rally event. The event began on 6 January 2000 in Senegal and ended on 23 January in Cairo. It had been re-routed to avoid Mauritania following an armed robbery of competitors in the 1999 rally. Four stages of the rally scheduled to be held in Niger were cancelled following a reported terrorist threat. Competitors were airlifted from Niamey airport to Libya where the rally was restarted five days later at Sabha. The rally was won by French driver Jean-Louis Schlesser and his co-driver Henri Magne in a Schlesser-Renault buggy., with the motorcycle title going to BMW's Richard Sainct and the truck title to Kamaz's Vladimir Chagin.
The 2001 Dakar Rally, also known as the 2001 Paris–Dakar Rally, was the 23rd running of the Dakar Rally event. The format was revised to reduce the amount of airborne assistance to competitors in favour of assistance vehicles. The 2001 rally was 6,600 miles (10,600 km) long and began in Paris, France, on New Year's Day, passing through Spain, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, before finishing at Dakar in Senegal. This was the last Paris-Dakar Rally that commenced and finished in the same locations as the original race. Jean-Louis Schlesser won the penultimate stage of the rally to take the lead but was penalised one hour for unsportsmanlike conduct. The rally was won by German Jutta Kleinschmidt, who became the first woman to win the event. The motorcycle class of the rally was won by Italian Fabrizio Meoni, with Karel Loprais winning the truck class.
2005 Dakar Rally also known as the 2005 Paris-Dakar Rally was the 27th running of the Dakar Rally event. The 2005 event was 5,565 miles (8,956 km) long, began in Barcelona on 31 December 2004 and passed through Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Mali before ending at Dakar in Senegal on 16 January 2005. The course was shorter than in 2004 but was more challenging. A record number of competitors, 696 cars, motorbikes and trucks in total, entered the rally.
The 2006 Dakar Rally, also known as the 2006 Paris-Dakar Rally, was the 28th running of the Dakar Rally event. The 2006 event ran from 31 December 2005 to 15 January 2006. It started from Lisbon, Portugal, and passed through Spain, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, before finishing in Senegal. The format included speed restrictions on motorcycles and trucks and reduced use of global positioning systems. Competitors included double world rally champion, Carlos Sainz.
The 2011 Dakar Rally was the 33rd running of the event. It was held in Argentina and Chile for the third successive time, and ran from 1 to 16 January. The Amaury Sport Organisation and the governments of Argentina and Chile agreed to a return to South America for the event on 23 March 2010.
Toby Joseph Price OAM is an Australian off-road and enduro motorcycle racing world champion. He lives in Gold Coast, Queensland, and rode for the KTM Off-Road Racing Team until October 2015, then the Red Bull Factory KTM Rally Team until 2024.
Timo Gottschalk is a German rally co-driver, most notable for being on the winning team of the 2011 Dakar Rally alongside Nasser Al-Attiyah and in 2025 with Yazeed Al-Rajhi.
Africa Eco Race is an annual rally raid, organised in France and run in North and West Africa, launched after the cancellation of 2008 Dakar Rally, and the subsequent moving of the rally to South America.
Sara Price is an American racing driver, having competed in motocross, rallying, the X Games, Stadium Super Trucks and Extreme E.
The 2018 Dakar Rally was the 40th edition of the event and the tenth successive year that the event was in South America. The event started in Lima, Peru on 6 January and ran through Argentina and Bolivia, finishing in Córdoba, Argentina on 20 January after 14 stages of competition.
Yoshimasa Sugawara is a retired Japanese rally driver, having been on the podium seven times at the Dakar Rally in the trucks category.
The 2020 Dakar Rally was the 42nd edition of the event and the first edition held in Saudi Arabia. The event started in Jeddah on 5 January and finished in Al-Qiddiya on 17 January after 12 stages of the competition.
The 2021 Dakar Rally was a rally raid event held in Saudi Arabia and the 43rd edition of the Dakar Rally. The event was held for 14 days, starting from 3 January and ended 15 January 2021. It was the second time Saudi Arabia had hosted the event, with support from the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation. The race started and ended in Jeddah, allowing the competitors to venture through the desert and alongside the Red Sea. The route consists of one prologue stage and 12 normal stages, with one rest day in Ha'il on 9 January. The rally was originally intended to run through 2–3 additional countries, with Egypt and Jordan being rumoured likely candidates. However, due to travel and border restrictions implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the route stayed entirely within Saudi Arabian territory.
Cristina Gutiérrez Herrero is a Spanish dentist and rally raid driver. She became the first Spanish female car driver to finish the Dakar Rally in 2017 before winning the event in the T3 category in 2024. In 2021 she was the second woman to win a stage in Dakar Rally history. She participates in the Extreme E electric cross-country series, driving for Lewis Hamilton's Team X44. In 2021 she won the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, becoming the first-ever female driver to win the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies. In 2022 she won the Extreme-E Championship alongside Sébastien Loeb in Lewis Hamilton's Team X44, making her the first Spanish woman to ever win it. In 2022 she was the first Spanish female to reach the podium of the Dakar Rally, being the third classified in the T3 category. In 2023 Dakar Rally she finished in 4th position after having many issues in the first week that prevented her from fighting for the victory. Nonetheless, she won the prologue of the Dakar Rally and the last stage which allowed her to finish in 4th position. In 2024, Cristina made history by winning the challenger category in the Dakar Rally, becoming only the second woman in history to achieve this feat in the world's toughest rally. This accomplishment follows Jutta Kleinschmidt victory in 2001, 23 years prior, as the Dakar Rally continues to become more and more professionalized. She is also the first Spanish woman to ever win at the Dakar Rally. She also holds four Dakar Rally stage wins.
The 2022 Dakar Rally was a rally raid event held in Saudi Arabia and the 44th edition of the Dakar Rally organized by Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO). The event took place between 1–14 January 2022. This was the third time Saudi Arabia had hosted the event, with support from the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation. The race started in Ha'il and ended in Jeddah, going through canyons and cliffs in the Neom region, passing by the Red Sea coastline, into the stretches of dunes surrounding Riyadh, with a lot more action on sand dunes in the Empty Quarter. The route consisted of one prologue stage and 12 normal stages, with one rest day in Riyadh on 8 January.
The 2023 Dakar Rally was a rally raid event held in Saudi Arabia and the 45th edition of the Dakar Rally organized by Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO). The event takes place between 31 December 2022 and 15 January 2023. This is the fourth time Saudi Arabia has hosted the event. For the second year running, the event is also the first round of the 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship.
The 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship is the fourth season of the annual competition for rally raid events sanctioned by both the FIA and FIM. The Amaury Sport Organization is in the fourth of a five-year contract to promote the championship. The season started with the 2025 Dakar Rally, which was won in cars by Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk and by Daniel Sanders on bikes.
Sam Sunderland
Juan Puga
Ignacio Casale
Eugenio Favre
Boris Gadasin
Reinaldo Varela
Nasser Al-Attiyah
Alex Aguirregaviria
Georges Ginesta
Marc Douton
and 1x 
)
Senegal 
Mali 
Mauritania 
Niger 
Morocco 
Algeria 
Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
Libya 
Guinea 
Saudi Arabia 
Bolivia 
Peru 
Ivory Coast 
Egypt 
Portugal 
Chad 
Tunisia 
South Africa 
Angola 
Cameroon 
Gabon 
Congo 
Namibia 
Central African Republic 
Sierra Leone 
Paraguay 
